What are the themes of "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" by Kurt Vonnegut?

In this, Vonnegut's first published short story, which appeared in 1950, a good-hearted professor develops the psychic ability to destroy weapons even from a great distance away. He goes into hiding and uses the "Barnhouse Effect" to destroy machines of war and armaments all over the world, leading to an uneasy world peace. To ensure that this peace is maintained, his student has also gone into hiding, to be trained to carry on the Barnhouse effect after his mentor's death.

This is a utopic story, but not without a strong edge of unease. It speaks to the deep desire of people, especially after the horrors of two world wars and the dropping of the atom bomb, to live in a world of peace, but acknowledges how fragile that peace is, even with seemingly limitless psychic power backing it up. Barnhouse imposes peace on an unwilling world, and the story makes clear that many would relish Barnhouse's death if it meant they could return to world of war and domination that, ironically, seems "safer" to them.

War and peace are thus the main themes of the story and it is to Vonnegut's credit that he delivers a tale about the seeming salvation of humans from warfare (this story was written as nuclear power was spreading) with a strong dose of anxiety. The story makes clear that a psychic weapon alone is not enough to ensure peace: the U.S. military would have misused it. The weapon rests on the conscience of the person possessing its secret, so luckily, Professor Barnhouse is, as he puts it, a "weapon with a conscience." But what if the weapon falls into the wrong hands? Weapons alone, the story suggests, are not alone what keep us safe.

It's worth noting that Vonnegut was a prisoner held by the Germans during World War II, and this lived experience informs both his desire for peace and his doubts about the human ability to achieve it. Only with eternal caution and care, the story says, will we achieve the dream of a peaceful world.

What is the plot of "Report on the Barnhouse Effect"? What social commentary does Vonnegut provide?

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” actually contains a story within a story, each with a plot that intertwines with the other. Let’s look at how this works.

We begin with the frame story. The first-person narrator, a student of the famous Professor Barnhouse, is writing a report about the professor, who has disappeared. The narrator begins with a statement that he does not know where the professor is. He then provides an explanation of the Barnhouse Effect and the chaos that the professor’s disappearance has caused. Most of this serves as exposition to the story, although it does present the conflict involved, and the action does begin to rise, along with readers’ curiosity, as the narrator hints at a “new twist” in the armaments race.

The narrator then flashes back to the main story. The exposition of this part introduces us to Professor Barnhouse, his discovery of dynamopsychism, and his effort to learn about and control it (the conflict). The action rises as the professor studies his new talent and the narrator comes into the story as his student. The action continues to rise through the professor’s experiment with the inkwell and then to Operation Brainstorm. We reach the climax of the story as Barnhouse successfully passes the test of Operation Brainstorm (and then some) and then makes his escape.

The narrator then returns to the frame story. We think that the action is falling as the narrator tells us how the professor has been carefully destroying weapons around the world. He also speculates about the professor’s death (which may not be long in coming) and the danger the professor is in from his enemies. However, we then reach the climax of the frame story, in which the narrator explains that he now proposes to vanish, for he has figured out how to control dynamopsychism. “Barnhouse will die,” he says. “But not the Barnhouse Effect.” The story resolves as the narrator explains his “fifty consecutive sevens” and ends with a mere “Good-by.”

As for social commentary, Vonnegut certainly makes a strong statement on the arms race and on the motivations for war. The professor refuses to become another weapon, and he goes into hiding to pursue his own plans for peace.